Rose, who frequently appears on the network and maintains a podcast on Grantland, was added as part of ESPN’s effort to challenge TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” The Big Lead pointed out. The first phase of that attempt was to remove Chris Broussard and Jon Barry from their seats on the show.

The news of Rose’s gig with “NBA Countdown” comes after it was reported he will also be added as Hubert Davis’s replacement on ESPN College Basketball Gameday. That means he is slated to travel for college basketball eight times during the season and maintain co-hosting duties on “Numbers Never Lie.”

Rose has the resume to take on positions in NBA and college basketball. He retired from the NBA after 13 seasons with the Nuggets, Pacers, Bulls, Raptors, Knicks and Suns. Before entering the professional ranks, Rose was a member of Michigan’s Fab 5, for whom a documentary was aired on ESPN in 2011.

He became the obvious play when NBA commissioner David Stern expressed reservations about the idea of Van Gundy as an ESPN analyst. Thomas was ruled out when Simmons, editor-in-chief of ESPN’s Grantland, was said to prefer Rose.